Filed under: Ireland, Lauren Selden, anecdotes, art, craft, film and video, food, gallery, installation, travel | Tags: Dublin, study abroad, Ireland, travel, Lauren Selden, food, architecture, experimental film, Post, adventure, tourist, wagamama, st. patricks cathedral, vegan, art, national gallery ireland, IMMA, shopping, bookstore, gallery, art gallery, 4 dame lane, video art
It’s been a busy few days over here. Last Thursday I was part of a media/art exhibition at a club here in Dublin known only by the mysterious name, 4 Dame Lane. It was a fairly low tech production, as you might be able to tell from the ‘vintage’ televisions our work was shown on, but it gave the night a fun bohemian flair. The piece I had included is one from 2007, called Waiting.
After the fun and excitement of Thursday night, and a great potluck hosted by NYU students on Friday night on Saturday we did the gallery circuit. Along with some fellow exchange students we headed first to IMMA, the Irish Museum of Modern Art. IMMA is located in the most beautiful building on a hilltop just outside of the city center. The grounds are beautiful and they have a wonderful sculpture garden. The main show right now is called Exquisite Corpse- and among all the great artwork there was also a fun room where you could draw your own exquisite corpses with friends. We all had great fun drawing them up, give art students a DIY project and they’ll go wild for sure! (you can see the results in my Flickr album)
After IMMA we strolled our way back into the city, stopping at a few unnamed hole in the wall galleries (which I find can often be the most interesting). We made a pit stop at St. Patricks Cathedral and then headed for a bite. Wagamama’s is a UK restaurant chain that serves up Asian style cuisine- we all really enjoyed it, especially Aino who is vegan. The restaurant actually has its’ own vegan menu which is perfect for her, and others like her!
We did visit the National Gallery after, but I admit we didn’t visit in the typical way. You see, the Gallery Shop is right in the entrance of the gallery- and by the time we’d checked out every nook and cranny (and bought most of it) the gallery itself had closed! Please forgive us and our retail therapy. We all made a pact to go back again for a real visit. In the meantime, you can enjoy the beautiful architecture of the gallery lobby. What great shapes!
Also: a tiny little p.s. but a BIG thank you to everyone who has sent me some snail mail- I think I’ve become addicted to both giving and getting it!
Filed under: Ireland, Lauren Selden, NCAD, anecdotes, art, books, colour, food, gallery, literature, personal intrests, photography, travel, writing | Tags: adventure, architecture, Beer, Dublin, explore, exploring, food, Guinness, Ireland, Jameson, Lauren Selden, memory, Oscar Wilde, tour, tourist, travel, Trinity University, Weather, Whiskey, Writers
This past Sunday I finally became an official Tourist in Dublin. Along with my friend, a fellow exchange student at NCAD, I took a ‘hop on hop off’ bus tour of Dublin, which ended up being a lot of fun, I recommend it for sure! We started out at Trinity University, to take a look around- mostly just getting jealous that our campus isn’t as insanely beautiful. Then we hopped on the bus, and got off moments later at the home of Oscar Wilde, one of my absolute favorite writers of all time (and a born and bred Dubliner). His house is now a museum of American something-or-other which I think is a shame, but at least there is a little bronze plaque out front! Also, there is the most kickin’ statue of Oscar in the park across the street, Aino and I had a lot of fun posing in front of it. (but I’m not so sure those photos need to be immortalized on the Internet).
We started out fairly early, which meant that a lot of the museums were still closed, so we carried on with the tour and planned to double back later on in the day. We were both disappointed to learn that IMMA, the museum of modern art, is closed until later on this week.
Our next stop ended up being the Jameson Distillery, makers of Irish Whiskey. I wasn’t sure that I would enjoy the tour, but I really did, our guide was great and the distilling process is actually quite fascinating! I’d also never tried Whiskey, so it was fun to discover that I actually enjoy it. Aino had hers straight up, I had mine with ginger-ale and we both had a nice lunch afterwards at the restaurant in the distillery.
We headed for the writers museum next, which was fun but didn’t allow photos. I’ve been told that they are planning on shutting down the museum, which I think is a shame. But the place certainly needs some TLC, the plaster was cracking and things were actually sellotaped to the walls! Apparently there is no funding, and unfortunately it shows. (although the artifacts are fantastic to see, especially the original handwritten pages)
Next we booked it over to Guinness in order to make their last 5pm tour. We arrived at the factory at 4:45- just in time. The factory is insanely huge, it covers blocks and blocks of land, and even just the part open to the public is enormous. If Willy Wonka made beer instead of chocolate- this would be the factory he designed. Aino and I got to wander up and down 4 floors of beautifully designed exhibits, including a fantastic indoor waterfall of EPIC proportions. We were both impressed by their masterful usage of old barrels as presentation structures, as well as some fantastic glass screens that switch between transparent and opaque. Very cool.
Okay, here is the part where I let you in on a shameful secret- I do not like Guinness. Yes- despite my spending far too many euros in the (most amazing!) gift shop I barely touched m
y free pint. I just find it far too bitter tasting, I’m a Granville Island Honey Lager girl at heart. I had a little chat with my taxi driver on the way home and he informed me that its actually very difficult to get a good pint of Guinness in Dublin anymore, apparently the company has been using more and more preservatives and other various chemicals which tends to leave that bitter taste in your mouth. However I’ve got to give them this, I love the way a pint of Guinness looks in it’s glass, all dark black amber with creamy white foam- it’s definitely an attractive drink. You’ve got to hand it to them, the people at Guinness sure know how to put on a show! And even though I haven’t seen all there is to see in Dublin, by any means, I have to say I feel a little closer to Ireland than I did before our tour.
Filed under: Ireland, Lauren Selden, art, craft, food, personal intrests, photography, travel, writing | Tags: art nouveau, Aubergine, Cafe en Seine, craft, DIY, Dublin, Euro, food, Grafton Street, Ireland, Lace, Lauren Selden, Marks and Spencer, ribbon, Rubanesque, SaBa, study abroad, travel
I’m having a great time in Dublin, my only trouble is trying to find the time to catch up with my blog as by the end of most days I’m so tired it’s straight to sleep!
On Friday I went out an about for a bit, with the primary goal being to find a replacement for my poor broken suitcase. Lufthansa has a connection with a luggage shop in downtown Dublin and I was able to go down there with the old suitcase and trade it in for a new one! I actually think the new suitcase is even nicer than the old one, and it’s such a relief no
t to have the heart-break of looking at the old broken one. After that, Johanna and I wandered through Dublin for a while. I’d been searching high and low for an eggplant (they call them aubergines here)and I hadn’t had any luck- we ended up checking a specialty food store and found my eggplant at last! Now I just have to decide what to make with it. Perhaps baba ghanoush?
Filed under: Lauren Selden, aura, emily carr institute, food, personal intrests, travel, vancouver | Tags: Dublin, emily carr institute, Euro, food, Ireland, Lauren Selden, NCAD, study abroad, travel
Things are great here in Dublin, its actually much warmer than in Vancouver, and very mild – although it is chilly and windy. No snow to be found, and actually my roommate says that it hardly ever snows in here. (yay!)
My flat is super nice, a bit away from the city but still very nice and in a good, safe area. We have a cute little garden and the kitchen and bathroom are beautiful and modern (thank goodness!) For now I’m sleeping in the spare room in the attic, it has 4 skylights! The the stairs leading up to it are quite steep and narrow- but I’m sure I will get used to that. I move downstairs into the bigger bedroom on the 13th January.
Yesterday I arrived home(here) around 3pm, exhausted and frustrated because of my poor shattered and completely destroyed suitcase. (you can see from the photo above that one wheel was torn off- and that’s not even the worst of the damage!) The airport people were not very helpful but my taxi driver was extremely nice, thank goodness! Johanna my roommate (whose room I will be taking over later on) was home and we sat and had tea for a bit, then I cleaned up and we ran some errands in a cute little part of town (reminded me a bit of 4th ave or maybe Main street in Vancouver). I had a great warm salad of grilled vegetables and red pepper cous cous which was delicious, at a little cafe/restaurant there and we had my key made and did a bit of grocery shopping.
EVERYTHING here is expensive. Euros are scary!! Plus they have weird amounts of coins, 2 cents, 20 cents, along with the usual 1, 5, 10 and 50. Strange!
Today I slept in, then headed downtown to the tourism office in search of a map of the city. The tourist office is in a huge old church, pretty amazing! All the buildings here are beautiful.
I forgot to bring my camera out with me today so you’ll have to trust my descriptions of Dublin. When I first noticed I’d forgotten my camera, I was crushed, but then I realized that I will have the next four months to take photos, its nice to be able to just walk about and relax without having to worry about documenting everything.
Found a map, and a power adapter and then headed for a walk to my new school, being Sunday it was closed of course- most smaller shops and institutions in Dublin are closed Sunday. But I had a good walk around the city and enjoyed looking at all the architecture, even if it can be challenging to walk on the cobblestone streets.
Another strange thing about Dublin is that there are NO STREET SIGNS ANYWHERE! Some of the buildings have the street name written on them along with the number, which was helpful when I was trying to find my way to school. Thank god I had a map to follow the streets along with, as well as a good sense of direction- or I might have gotten lost.
Above, you can see the area that I’m living in, downtown Dublin is further up and to the right of the area in the photo. If you can tell, behind our house there is a beautiful little river and hills, with a trail that goes along it. I will have to cross over the river in the mornings as I go to the train station. It’s a picturesque walk. The train here is very similar to the skytrain in Vancouver, and is called Luas. It takes only 10 minutes, maybe less to get to the city center probably the equivalent of 3 stops or so on the Vancouver Skytrain.
Now I’m settling down with my computer for a while, and planning a relaxing night in. Tomorrow morning I will have my first day at school- I’m very nervous about it, but hopefully all goes well!
